


the history of the world, bets, and leather

by malkinisms (hannibalisms)



Series: at the end of the world [2]
Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Incest, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pseudo-Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:38:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannibalisms/pseuds/malkinisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki remembers first seeing Thor from behind his mother's skirts on his fifth birthday.  Thor was eight was full of energy and power and strength, even as young as he was, and for a moment Loki was frightened of this towheaded boy that his mother told him was his brother.  Loki remembers that the first thing he noticed aside from the whirlwind energy was that he had eyes as blue as the water that surrounded Asgard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the history of the world, bets, and leather

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wizzardess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wizzardess/gifts).



> Okay, so after writing [apples, magic, and hammers](http://archiveofourown.org/works/287867) Jax [asked for more](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/451043) so, because I am a benevolent writer, ask and you shall receive!
> 
> This is pre-movie, thus it's also technically pre-canon and is tagged as such. I've also taken the tales of Sif's hair and Brokk and Loki and twisted it a little to serve my purposes, so if you're interested in the actual tale as it is written I'd recommend looking into **Nordic Gods and Heroes** by Padraic Colum or **Norse Mythology: A guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs** by John Lindow, as that's where I get most of my Nordic knowledge from.
> 
> Also I don't know why I always end up making something sad, so I _promise_ that the next one will have a happier ending but all this ship makes me want to do is write sad things.

The vastness of space is terrifying.  Loki was never frightened of it on the balcony of the palace, since it was what it was - the sky, the Bifrost, eternity that he never needed to fear.  Now, though, falling through it or floating through it or stuck in one tiny space, Loki is terrified to think that he might be stuck here for the rest of his long life.  There's no telling how long he will last in space - no telling how long it will be before the air is crushed from his lungs or he falls to the land on some other planet.  His father _not-father king thief_ \- has lived for eons and Loki doesn't know how long he'll last.  He has plenty of time to think on what has been.

Loki remembers first seeing Thor from behind his mother's skirts on his fifth birthday.  Thor was eight was full of energy and power and strength, even as young as he was, and for a moment Loki was frightened of this towheaded boy that his mother told him was his brother.  Loki remembers that the first thing he noticed aside from the whirlwind energy was that he had eyes as blue as the water that surrounded Asgard.

Thor only stopped after his mother had patiently said his name a few times, before pulling Loki out from behind her and introducing them properly.  Thor's eyes narrowed and he looked askance at Loki (who had his fingers stuck in his mouth, a habit Odin had yet to break him of), before proclaiming that he would teach Loki to ride a horse as a birthday present, before promptly grabbing Loki's free hand and dragging him to the stables.  Frigga trailed behind them, amused, watching as her two sons discovered each other.

Loki remembers that Thor interrogated him as to his favorite things: color (green), food (noodles), animal (rabbits), to which Thor took quite seriously and responded his own favorites (red, boar, goats).  Thor, of course, wasn't allowed a real horse but a dappled grey pony that he called Þruma that he set Loki on top of and taught him how to hold the reins, sit in the saddle, and lead the pony around the paddock without falling off.

It's Thor that coaxes him into using _both_  hands on the reins, since one won't cut it, and Frigga watches and smiles and calls Odin from his chamber to watch the new brothers learn.  Frigga told him later that Odin had smiled and said he had the best sons in all the realms, that none should come after them because none would be as good.

Loki remembers that on his fifteenth birthday (Thor had turned eighteen a few months before) Thor snuck into his room early in the morning and gave him a fabulous gift: a leather journal with Loki's name tooled into the cover and gold threads binding the pages together.  Thor told him that he had a mage spell it so that the pages would increase as Loki needed them to, because he was always writing or taking notes or drawing some schematic about something that only Loki understood.  Loki had wrapped his arms around Thor's bulky shoulders and just held onto him for a long moment and Thor lets him before starting to fidget.  (Loki thinks to this day that Thor is like a dog when there's too much affection put upon him: he starts swallowing and making noises in his throat, squirming in their arms until they pull away and Thor can set himself to rights.)

At his birthday dinner, Thor had insisted that Loki be seated next to him rather than at his mother's side, since fifteen meant that Loki was a man and didn't need to be at his mother's side for protection.  Thor told Odin that since _he_  was the elder brother Loki should sit next to him and learn the ways of a warrior from _him_.  Frigga had hid her smile behind her sleeve and Odin just looked at him sideways through his one good eye before agreeing, though it sounded placating to Loki's ears.  So, Loki sat to Thor's left and Fandral's right, learning more that he didn't _want_  to be a warrior than what it was to _be_ a warrior.

They had dragged Loki out to one of the taverns outside the palace and everyone but Loki drank to Loki's health, and the night was spent listening to Sif talk about how the others didn't appreciate her as a warrior, and it made Loki want to shut her up somehow.  He contemplated cutting off her hair - she prized it over all things, and even though she wanted to be a warrior she always made sure that her hair was in place and that none had harmed it.  She was a dear friend to Thor, though, and he thought better of it since he didn't want to lose the love of Thor.  Instead, he foraged in the tavern's kitchen until he found eggs.  He had separated the whites from the yolks and glued all their hands and feet and faces to surfaces so that they would have a time of getting up.  He didn't feel any remorse; after all, _they_  were the ones that had gone and gotten drunk on _his_  birthday.

Loki swore to everyone who asked about that night that he could hear their yowling from the palace as they had to wrench their bodies from the tables and benches and floor.  It pleased him more than it should have done.

Loki remembers the time that he _did_  cut off Sif's hair.  It was after he and Thor had been together for nearly twenty years, and she had said within his hearing that she wanted to marry Thor - _she_  wanted to marry Thor!  No one could have him in that way - Thor was _his_  in that manner, and no one else could have a claim on him.  There were times when Thor had a woman - just as there was times that Loki had a women - but nothing that was serious, nothing that could ruin what he had and earned and _taken_.  So, when Sif was sleeping, he crept into her chambers from the shadows and shaved her head clean.  He burned her hair in a fire in the catacombs so that it couldn't be magically returned - you can't return what no longer exists.

Sif had known from the moment she woke that Loki had done it, that Loki had taken her great vanity from her and she swore vengeance against him.  Loki fled to the cottage in the woods that he hid in when he needed to be alone the most, and it had taken days before Thor calmed her down enough to get Loki to come back.  Loki returned and let Sif rail at him in private; even with one of Frigga's scarves wrapped around her head to hide her lack of hair, she was truly scary in her rage and in that moment of weakness he stuttered out the reason he took her hair and her face had softened as she sat down next to him.  She smiled at him and told him about her secret loves, and that she only wanted to marry Thor because that was what she had been told all her life.  She took Loki's hand and at that moment she was one of his friends, one of his few friends.

Sif ended up letting her hair grow back out, and instead of the burnished gold it had been it came back in gleaming waves of auburn that blazed red in the high sun.  She kept it pinned back in braids, though, and every so often it would need a trim and in a show of solidarity would come to Loki and let him cut off the dead ends.  Loki remembers those moments as some of the happiest moments, sharing gossip with Sif and showing her little magics that he would use against the Warriors Three if they grew too big for their britches.

Loki remembers one of the few times that he lost a battle of wits - it still smarts to think about, still pains him to think that _he_ , the God of Mischief - lost to a bushel of rotten _dvergr._ In hindsight, he shouldn't have bet that they couldn't make something better than Gungnir or Skíðblaðnir against his head, because he should have known that they would rise to the challange.  When Brokk and his brother Sindri took to the forges and started their craft in the bowels of Svartálfaheimr, Loki was at a loss as to what to do. His magic wasn't enough to stop them from crafting great pieces. He could only shift his form to small things - snakes, mice, rats, and a volley of insects - and he would never admit it but they had already started crafting metal before he thought of becoming a gadfly and hovering around the forge.

The golden ring Draupnir was perfect and shining, and though he stung their hands nothing happened and they kept at their craft.  The second item was Gullinbursti the boar and still it was amazing and perfect, no matter that Brokk's hands were swollen and bleeding.  It wasn't until the third item - the hammer Mjöllnir - that Loki got Brokk to take a minute break when he stung Brokk in the eye and the handle of the hammer is just short of perfect.  Loki flew away in glee, sure that he would win the bet.

The problem arose when Thor returned from his first hunt and was given the hammer, and Thor declared it perfect and fitting and _wonderful_.  Brokk and Sindri were overjoyed that they had won and demanded Loki give his head to them, which made Thor pale in rage in anger that they _dared_  to threaten his brother.  Loki held tight to Thor's arm and cried out that he had said they could have his _head_ , but they couldn't touch his neck; that wasn't in the wager.  Thor's fingers tightened around the handle of Mjöllnir before he even knew how to use it and said they would have nothing of his brother, _nothing_ , but there was no dissuading them.  Brokk had gained Odin's favor with Draupnir ( _traitor thief not-father unkind cur of a God_ , Loki should have known it then!) and Odin declared that as long as Brokk didn't touch his neck, he could have his head.

Brokk sewed his mouth shut with an iron awl and a leather thong.  It seemed to take ages, the dull point of the awl slipping in and out of his mouth followed by the rough burn of the leather.  To add insult to injury it was freshly tanned and Loki _swore_  he could taste the lye and that it made him bleed more.

Loki can still taste the blood on his tongue, so much blood that he thought he was drowning until Brokk loosened the cord just enough that he could spit it out.

The deal was for a month, a _month_  in which Loki couldn't eat and could barely drink, when he couldn't open his mouth to give Thor his words or his anger or anything at all, a month that he couldn't feel the weight of Thor's cock on his tongue, a month that he couldn't lick stripes down Thor's back and taste the sweat there.  A month when he couldn't do _magic_  or anything.

After the month is over, he lets Thor cut the cords and pull it out because he knows that Thor won't tell of his tears, won't judge him when he flinches away from Thor's roughened fingers.  It's like pulling shrapnel from a battle wound, still slick and bloody after a month of half-healing.  The holes are left open, and they ooze and bleed and won't take to any healing salves or spells and Loki has to live with another month of barely being able to use his mouth for _anything_.  Thor tells him he can wait until Loki's healed, until his mouth doesn't bleed at the merest tightening of the skin, but Loki _misses_  being able to make Thor quake and shiver and come with nothing but his lips and tongue and teeth.

They take a little over a season to fully heal and Loki is overjoyed when he can open his mouth without fearing that he'll bleed all over himself or Thor or his mother or his _traitor_  of a father.  They're barely visible but the warriors take to using it as one of his failures, a failure that they shove into his face when something he plans doesn't go as planned.

Loki remembers as the space around him seems to widen and tighten all at the same time, and the solar winds brush his tears away like little fingers.  He closes his eyes against the bright nebulae floating by him and then he's seized by some space current, some powerful remnant of the Bifrost and he's slammed into the ground, smashed to bits if he wasn't a god, and the sun on this planet is warm and inviting.  He cracks his eyes open and recognizes Midgard, where Thor spent his exile and it brings tears to his eyes to think that _this_ is what it comes down to, some Midgardian wench and her Midgardian magic, a poor substitute to what Loki could have given Thor, would still give him if Thor asked it.  He would fall to his knees and take everything back, beg Thor to be king as he was meant to be and take Loki back into his arms and his bed and his _heart_ , but Loki knows that something has to be done about this _woman_  that has dared to worm her way into Thor's heart as Loki did, as Loki tried to keep everyone else from doing.  She has to be _stopped_  and there's nothing else that could be the solution.  Loki has to take care of her affection as he took care of Sif's affection.  It has to be eradicated, and if Loki has to revert to his _nature_  to do it, he will, all for Thor.


End file.
